Complex Characters and the Power of Contradiction

You’ve likely seen countless posts and resources related to creating great characters, but almost all of them seem to be lacking in one aspect I’ve found to be perhaps the most powerful: giving your characters contradictions.

Some might read this and say, “Huh? Isn’t that inconsistent characterization? Or undefined characterization?”

The contradictions I’m talking about aren’t continuity errors or mistakes. They can relate to internal conflicts, but they are not internal conflicts. If you don’t like the term “contradiction,” many of the things I’m about to talk about also work as “contrasts.”

When writers are given methods to create characters, the approaches often include giving the character strengths and weaknesses, likeable attributes, a unique appearance, and a nice backstory, or a secret or fear. These are all wonderful and useful things. But how do you make your character more complex? More interesting?

The answer lies in giving them some sort of contradiction. Let’s look at some examples of characters and the contradiction or contrasts surrounding them.

Harry Potter: the most famous and (rumored to be) most powerful wizard in the wizarding world, and he lives in the cupboard under the stairs at his abusive aunt and uncle’s.

Frodo from Lord of the Rings: the most unskilled, unqualified, and harmless person who is the only one capable of taking the evilest magical object, the Ring, through the darkest lands to be destroyed

Blu from Rio: a bird who doesn’t know how to fly

Simba (adult) from The Lion King: the king of the lions no longer wants to be king and is charged with killing his beloved father.

Finnick Odair from The Hunger Games: long pampered and adored as society’s playboy and sex symbol, Finnick yearns for loyal monogamy and shares a pure love for Annie that is unrivaled. Though he could have any woman in the country, he falls for a mentally disabled girl that he’s forbidden from marrying so the antagonist can continue to use him as a high society prostitute.

Edward Cullen from Twilight: Love or hate Twilight, Edward is a great example of a walking contradiction. A vampire who falls in love with a human who has the most potent blood he’s ever encountered.

Murph from Interstellar: A girl who hates her father for leaving her must call upon her love for him to save a dying earth.

Giving your character some sort of contradiction or contrast immediately makes them more interesting. We wonder how they can be that way. We wonder how they live their life. The reasoning and space between the contradiction is where the character gets complex. Harry doesn’t like being abused at his aunt and uncle’s, but he doesn’t like the lavish attention he receives from overcoming Voldemort either.

The contradiction can lead to a character arc. Blu in Rio has never been able to fly, but he has to overcome that weakness in the movie. The arc is more interesting because Blu embodies his contradiction. It’s more interesting than perhaps a non-contradictory arc would be.

The contradiction can be simply a question of lifestyle (How can the biggest, richest playboy of Panem want a monogamous relationship with mentally disabled woman?). Or it could be a contradiction in identity (How does a lion prince who spends an entire song dreaming of becoming king turn to loathing the idea? While being haunted with the fear that he killed his beloved father? Who is he? Where does he fit and belong?). Anyone who has seen The Lion King knows that it deals largely with identity.

The space between these contradictions—where they meet, are explored, and explained— is where your character becomes complex. The fact that Harry has to deal with being hated in one world and being loved in the other (and likes neither) makes him more complex. Frodo being one of the least experienced characters in Lord of the Rings but the only one capable of carrying the ring makes him complex. While media portrays Finnick as having a slew of lovers, the only love of his life is an unusual girl he’s willing to die for to protect. That makes him complex. And all this complexity gives the character depth.

One point worth mentioning: the more outlandish and center-stage the contradiction, the more exploring and explaining it likely needs. The goal is to create depth, not caricatures.

Sometimes these contradictions lead to on-page internal conflict. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they play into the character arc. Sometimes they don’t. The point is this: the quickest way to make a character complex is to give them some kind of contradiction.

A note from Angela…

If you’d like help understanding how your character’s past choices, experiences, and core personality traits shape who they are, what they want in the story, how they will behave and the types of relationships they will have in their life, try the Character Builder. This tool contains all the character-specific databases Becca and I have created, making it easy to brainstorm important personal details about your character that will make then well-rounded, human, and unique.

The more you know about your character, the easier they are to write, and you’ll know exactly what contradictions to bring about to deepen your story. Happy writing!